Google Told to Hand Over a Narrower Set of Pay Data

Since January, Google has resisted a demand by the Department of Labor that it share data - including the complete salary history and contact information for more than 21,000 employees - as part of a probe into potential "systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce", the government previously has argued.

The Labor Department should move more slowly and deliberately with its investigation, Berlin added, rather than demanding data in bulk while offering "nothing credible or reliable to show that its theory [.is] anything more than speculation".

A judge handed Google a victory in its spat with the US Department of Labor over employee salary data.

Google was ordered to give the United States government a 2014 snapshot of the wage data, along with contact information for thousands of its employees for possible interviews, said Judge Steve Berlin in a provisional ruling released in public on Sunday, according to the Guardian.

The government now has one week to appeal the ruling, following which it will be finalized and Google will provide a more limited set of data.

Contact information from 8,000 employees is enough to meet the department's goal of having a large enough group "so that there's no way Google can sort of back-figure who we talked to and go after them", Herold said.

Google denied the allegation, saying that the claim was made "without any supporting data or methodology" and noted that "the OFCCP representative claimed to have reached this conclusion even as the OFCCP is seeking thousands of employee records".

The judge's preliminary decision drastically limits the number of company employees whose contact information must be provided to the Labor Department.

"While we're pleased with Friday's recommended decision, we remain committed to treating, and paying, people fairly and without bias with regard to factors like gender or race", Naughton wrote in her post.

"Contractors will be held to their promise to let OFCCP fully audit their employment practices".

Critics of Silicon Valley have drawn fierce attention to its lack of diversity and its tendency to marginalize minorities and women, at times highlighting cases of unwanted sexual advances from male co-workers or refusals by management to address toxic workplace culture problems.